It doesn't sound very brillian to me. We already have a court reporter typing every word said in the trial into a computer shorthand. It's really the next logical step to wire that computer into monitors everybody can see.

I was on a jury (case of four teenagers breaking ~1000 mailboxes in four counties along the Dixe/Dort Highway. Biggest waste of three days in my life) a few years ago, and you'd be suprised how many times the proceedings had to be inturrupted because a lawyer, the judge, or the jury couldn't hear what was being said clearly. Every time, the court reporter had to stand up and read the last few things that were said. This would sometimes happen two to three times an hour.

You make it sound like the technology described in the article is a bad thing. But the right to a speedy trial is guaranteed by the Constitution [cornell.edu], and giving juries a greater level of effectiveness in their ability to review evidence can only be an improvement.

Speedy trial is more about not creating unnecessary delays (ie keeping you in jail for years before you get a trial) rather than rushing through the actual trial itself. We could program a computer to examine the facts, throw in a bit of randomness and end up with a really quick trial, too.

But this technology is intended to increase the accuracy of the information presented to the jury, and will not only help make trials shorter, but will help make them fairer as well. There's no "random element" purported to be added here. And the faster each trial goes, the shorter the wait will be before a person gets their day in court, as well.

We had a trial practice class when I was in law school, and this guy came in with some snazzy graphics he'd done for a DA's office somewhere... the problem with some of the use of courtroom technology is that juries are likely to believe "oh, this is how it happened" instead of "oh, this is how it could have happened" because they can see it played out for them on the screen.

I am part of what I hope is a growing number of people who think that "Powerpoint and Technology In the Courtroom" is actually a great leap backwards, and not a step forwards.

When prosecutors can out-spend a defendant and get super computer graphics to snow the jury into snuffing reasonable doubt, where's the justice in that?

There was something on UK news today which I found as bad as this; If criminals (the news item mentioned murderers, although I think it may have applied to all court cases) plead guilty they can have a severly reduced sentence, since it will save substancial amounts of money on court cases...

And I though justice had nothing to do with money.. Boy how I was wrong.

It's not just time and expense, the assumption (legal fiction though it usually is) is that if you plead guilty you're taking responsibility for your actions, and therefore have already begun the rehabilitation process.

What I didn't get is how the guy in the story got death if he pleaded, but I forced myself to read the article and discovered, surprise, surprise, the story didn't get it completely right. The other guy had pled guilty to carjacking and kidnapping, but had insisted that he hadn't killed t

That's not actually an entirely new idea in the UK. A mate of mine had a car accident last spring, to which the police was called as they were on private land. At the time of course the police reacted with sublime disinterest (so what else is new, I've seen them react with utter disinterest to armed theft before now), but as they're stressing the 'Better Driving' thing at the moment, he got a letter through the door a couple of weeks later saying, "Either admit your guilt and pay us 200 quid, or we'll take you to court, where the fines could reach 5,000". Obviously no sane being is going to go with the court case option, even if they were in posession of video evidence and ten witnesses... it just isn't worth it.

I see this sort of practice as cheapening the idea of justice, since it practically commands you to plead guilty and take your (potentially unjustly given) lumps, and to hell with any of that truth bollocks. Plus, it's politically excellent since more people will plead guilty, thus increasing the apparent success of the justice system. And you don't have a right to a free lawyer just because the Crown is threatening to prosecute, which means that if you're a bit strapped for cash you have to decide all on your little own. Sigh.

The UK desperately needs a bit more backbone, a bit of basic ethics, a bit less obsessiveness on the "ooh! scary nasty criminals are all around!" front, and a change of political direction; this political grandstanding stuff is just not doing it for me, quite frankly. I'm quite aware that criminals exist - I spent the tech recession working in a booze shop so I could hardly fail to have noticed - but I'm also aware that most of the adult criminals I've come across were pretty good pals of the local cops, that the police have no ability whatsoever to control teenage offenders, and that successful prosecution generally only occurs on the most inoffensive of targets. "Innocent men have nothing to fear" could also be stated as "Innocent men have everything to lose, and are therefore that much more frightened". Unfortunately.

There's no loss. Entering the evidence into the trial presentation software takes time too. But usually this is carried out by legal assistants. Our firm uses a product called Visionary that allows us to lay out all sorts of evidence and recall it at a moments notice to present on the secondary display. The cool part is that the software is free, they make their money through processing video. When a deposition comes in, you can request a tape from the court reporting service and then send it to them, they will then encode the entire thing and sync the transcript with the video. The result is the ability to highlight a paragraph or even a sentence in the depo and press play, the secondary display then shows the playback of the person actually saying that. Seeing someone say something has a MUCH greater effect on the judge or jury than simply quoting them.

I don't think "fair" is ever mentioned, but many faculties are given that could help to make the trial "fair":

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to

I work for CVision (the closed circuit IP based system used in the article). Frankly, this type of technology has to be stopped. When we're testing the systems in new installations we're ordered to cut back on the gamma and hike up the contrast for the cameras that focus on the defendant.

The reason? To make the defendant more menacing.

Cameras focused at the witness stand are lightened up and softened somewhat to make the witness appear more likeable. It's a total joke, fortunately my contract ends in just shy of 3 months.

Using the rule of thumb that all technology will be exploited to the max for evil purposes, it could get even worse than this.

It is likely that the screens will eventually get used to show graphics to support the prosecution's case: "I put it to you that Joe Sixpack took a knife and stabbed Fed six times" becomes an dramatised computer generated video showing a person, recognisably Joe, taking a knife and stabbing Fred - all with nice sound effects etc.

I suggest that the noble citizens that fill jury benches will be heavily swayed by images like these and will really struggle to tell the difference between something like this and true video evidence.

grandparent:When we're testing the systems in new installations we're ordered to cut back on the gamma and hike up the contrast for the cameras that focus on the defendant.
The reason? To make the defendant more menacing.

parent:Is it any worse than having the defendant show up with freshly cut hair, a clean shaved face, and in a suit?

Should it matter how the defendant looks? If we have a system where looks matter, then we need a new system. If someone is white and in a nice suit, should that excuse the person, where the judge thinks "oh, he made a bad mistake, i feel sorry for him", but if it is a poor black teen the judge thinks "miserable evil uneducated basturd, you deserve to suffer for being so dark".

It is like there are two legal systems, one for the rich and one for the poor. One who can afford their own private lawyer, and one who gets a public defender. Let me guess, these monitors will mostly be used with poorer people who can't afford their own attorney to assert their rights.

heh, just like that "jury of equals" won't be influenced by how someone looks...there've been tons of studies, and certain looks just appeal more to people. to name an example, if for some reason I wear a suit, all of a sudden I get remarks from people about how smart I look this, and how I should dress more often that. These are people who know me quite well, yet somehow they perceive me differently because I wear a suit and tie. Imagine what it's like when dealing with a total stranger.

Please tell me you're not that naive. The whole world always has, does, and always will work like this, not just the courts. Study after study has shown that looks influence everything, and you're victim of this too, whether you like it or not.

Ok, I call BS. I handle litigation technology for a law firm, and have been in many E-courtrooms. There is no camera made to focus on the defendant.
Take a look here [maricopa.gov] for a real view of the e-courtroom setups.
The cameras are voice activated, so only the person speaking will appear on the recording. Additionally, these are widely used in civil matters, so there is no "defendant" per se.
And a "nice behind-the-scenes" tidbit. The hardware used to capture all of this? Tivo.

Right, and neither have any relation to the court or state. You can argue the prosecution has more influence since they are state employees and work for the people. In a civil trial it's just two people or entities squaring off with eachother.

Nice thought exercise in how such a system could be abused... but it has a glaring hole. Any time the defendant took the stand in their own defense, they'd suddenly gain the favorable witness camera as they spoke... if there was a glaring difference in the two cameras, it'd be as clear as daylight when the person moved to the better camera.

There need not be a significant difference in this sort of thing. All that has to be done is an extremely small change, which is only picked up subconsciously. At sub

Where's the e-judge? A non-bribable A.I. would go a long way toward achieving proper justice in this country... Bonus points if it's capable of throwing the book (literally or figuratively, I don't care which) at both clients and lawyers bringing stupid lawsuits.

*Sigh* When will the death penalty ever be abandoned in the few remaining countries that still have it?

Who said I was for the death penalty? The last execution in my country was in 1962. It was removed from civilian law in 1976 and from military law in 1998. I think it's a pointless form of punishment, does nothing to deter crimes, and has resulted in too many innocent people being executed.

And IMHO, there's nothing honourable in throwing away something that you don't own; that's why suicide is a crime in many countries.

You don't own your own life? Why should others be allowed to decide when my life ends? I didn't really explain my point very well. If you know you killed someone else and have a choice between killing yourself and going through trial, killing yourself saves the family of the victim the grief of going through trial, saves the state from spending resources on the trial, and saves the executioner from having to live with himself. The goal is to lessen the amount of suffering for everyone involved.

Wait, wait, wait. All the people who have the opinion (of themselves) that if they do the crime they should get the punishment are all sound of mind. Except for those whose punishment is the death penalty? Perhaps he believed in the death penalty and believed he did the crime so he should have the punishment. I don't think that's insane, I think it's moral (then again I don't believe in the death penalty, but assuming he does).

According to the article on Fulks, linked from the story here, his case actually went to trial and his guilt was decided by a jury. From the way I read it, it seems as if he only pleaded guilty to carjacking and kidnapping -- neither of which (to the best of my knowledge) is a capital offense. I don't know if the article is written poorly or if it just neglected to say that he was being tried on murder charges, but that's the way I read it.

I really don't think I want to be judged on the skill of my lawer in photoshop and powerpoint...

Seriously, powerpoint is one of the things that NASA reports have blamed for the lack of attention to some details... I really think that the old, hash though paper way keeps the legal system more secure from tampering... (as much as it can be anyhow)

Hi. I write government software and used to work for the Department of Criminal Justice Services of NY State. The point of electronic forms is not to take the place of paper, but to make it immensely more accessible. Right now, if you want a fingerprint card from the 1960s to test against a print you found at a crime scene, you can pull up a digital version of it with a ton of advanced search and detection algorithms in minutes. Or, you can request the physical card and receive it in a few daysdays. The system preserves BOTH, because it doesn't want the hassle of worrying about the possibility of digital tampering, the one is frequently checked against the other. Still, most everybody uses the digital records, because you can't perform a keyword search on a thirty page deposition if it's lying in a stack on your desk.

I will say this, though...the complexity of the digital system, the number of off network systems and password lockouts, etc, means that it's actually MUCH easier to fake a paper document than a digital one. Seriously...there's a bunch of low income college interns walking the stacks of the central file office, doing pulls and purges, and the security is not loose but not tight, either. Anybody can pull up a typewriter, write out a completely new arrest card, stick in a fake photo, and bam! Bye bye arrest record. When I worked there, we had a guy who after working for two weeks was removed because he had an arrest record nobody knew about. He didn't do anything funny in the stacks...but if he'd wanted to, he had two whole weeks to pull it off.

I don't see anyone would be up in arms about this. Keeping track of evidence and testimonies, paying attention is difficult, to say the least, for individuals with no legal training. A method of keeping track of evidence to help juries make reasoned decisions will lead to more fair trials. Additionally, resolving issues faster is in the interests of everyone involved: the defendant, the plaintiff, and the jury. The only ones who lose are lawyers who charge by the hour!

Getting things done faster would allow more to be done; a lot of cases are ignored because there's not enough time to do them. Attorneys would probably make more money if the legal system were more efficient.

A trial is becoming a more rare occurance in U.S. District courts. Most judges now use summary judgments to knock out cases before they even get to trial. It's easier, cheaper, and clears the dockets faster. Most cases are won in pre-trial motions where technology doesn't really matter.

An aside: in the rare event a case does make it to trial, the new technology doesn't change the fact that all a trial is is just two conflicting stories of the same event. The lawyer who can tell the story better, with more

Technology in the courtroom is great up to the point where we are called to function without it, and find we are unable to do so. For example, imagine tryng a murder or rape case without the use of DNA evidence. The defendant may have confessed, and performed the act in front of a nun and two priests... but the jury expects expensive DNA testing, and you cannot get a convition without it.

Likewise with courtroom technology - When lawyers and jurors are over-used to the presence of touch screens and video equipment, what will they do when called to a courtroom in rural South Dakota that has barely the budget to keep the furnace running?

Also consider that, where human beings are doing the work, someone is ultimately responsible for a mistake. Court reporters and Notary Publics post bonds and can loos big money if they make a mistake. When is the last time your software vendor assumed liability for a computer crash?

The involvement of DNA in trials is overrated and blown completely out of proportion by the media. What does DNA evidence prove in most cases, other than that a person, or something they might have come in contact with ended up in a particular location? Often times it's a small part of the whole of evidence. It's also very expensive and is not used in the majority of cases, even those involving murder and/or rape.

"Confronting your accuser" and "facing a jury of your peers" works both ways. Human communication is extremely high bandwidth, a gestalt of not only extremely high resolution sights and sounds, but also smells, odd as that might be to consider. In-person communications don't have the distracting "grids" that communications technologies impose on the experience, or other distracting problems like color curves and transmission glitches. Then there's the selection of subject of the communications: you have to look at the cropped content the recorder sends you, not at the subject's twitching foot, or your neighbor's incredulous face. And rather than face a camera to compose your message, you face another person, who's facing you.

People are not nearly sophisticated enought to ignore the noise introduced by these technologies, and to notice the edited experiences they ignore. Does "can you hear me now?" mean anything to anyone? We can barely use these technologies in a cooperative conference call, with little more than "where should we meet for lunch?" on the line. It's unconscionable that people's lives are on the line with these technologies in the mix.

Nice paranoia, really, and good use of the word "gestalt," but when evidence moves from "over there on that table" to "right in front of my face," I am able to make a more informed decision as a juror.

When I don't have to wait a half hour while a bailiff goes to get the murder weapon because I can view it in 3d without disturbing the evidence, I'm making the trial move more fluidly.

When I can replay the witness' testimony, instead of merely remembering it, and I can detect that moment of hesitation that J

Right - and television will revolutionize education. I'm all for keeping recordings of all proceedings for on-demand replay, for the duration of the proceedings. But this tech is supplanting the live confrontations, precisely because it's easy. Sending a person, even a murderer, to their death, should be hard.

To be honest, they are using technologies that have been in use in schools and many other places for a long time. It looks like most of what they are doing is letting everyone get a better look at the evidence by aiming a camera at it, and networking the court's stenographer. This kind of stuff isn't really newsworthy to me, as we've been using the same kind of technology at my high school for over four years.

However, at least they're providing a users manual for the thing. I've seen quite a few teachers waste time with technology that they don't know how to deal with, and IT people who dont feel like taking the time out to ensure that things are setup correctly in the first place.

I've thought for a long time that the entire case should be recorded and then shown to a jury. Both sides can present their best cases and nobody can get away with theatrics.

Atty 1: "So has your buggering of small animals caused harm to your eyesight making you an unfit witness?"

Atty 2: "Objection"

Judge: "Sustained - the jury is instructed to disregard."

Atty 1: "No further questions"

Any question/response ruled inadmissable would be deleted - no chance of influencing the jury either intentionally or by accident.

If the jury pool is tainted or unable to reach a verdict, just seat a new jury and replay the recordings.

If evidence or judge's instructions are ruled incorrect or inadmissable by a higher court just edit the recording and show it to a new jury. This also eliminates the problem of a witness who dies before a retrial.

I would anticipate objections from lawyers thought, because they wouldn't be able to see the reactions of jurors and modify their presentations in real-time. In well-funded defenses, someone is always watching the jury, and there is much strategizing about how #2 The Soccer Mom looked bored during witness X's testimony, etc., and they change their questioning, arguments, etc. as time goes along.

Also, that would be one helluva editing session..."Your honor I move that the 16.5 seconds between

Is to prevent tampering. I mean it sounds like a good idea on the surface, but it would introduce the possibility that the jury saw an incorrectly censored version of the events. I mean the events will be censored, the system is all about that, what happens if someone censors something they shouldn't to help one side or the other?

When the jury is in the courtroom, that's just not possible. They'll know if someone is trying to play fast and loose and claim something wasn't said since they were there.

I dunno, I tend to be very anti-death-penalty. But, when someone comes into the court room and tries to get off on a technicality, or convince the jury to reduce the charge to manslaughter, or whatnot, I think we'd be more likely to hand out a death sentance.

When someone walks in and is like, "Yes, I admit I did it", how does that work? Thank you for saving the taxpayers lots of money by not going through a trial, and thank you for being upfront and honest about your crime; now, die!

I tend to be anti-death penalty, but like you, I believe in judicious and application of the death penalty, with extreme discretion on the part of the judge and jury.

That having been said: if I were genuinely guilty of a crime, and I were convicted given a choice between death, and life in prison without possibility of parole -- I would choose the former. For people like me, the death penalty would be a mercy. Perhaps this man was like me.

Its already been stated above that he pled guilty to carjacking and kidnapping, but the death penalty came from being found guilty of both those charges *and* the charge of 1st degree murder, which the defendent had pled not guilty to. Basically he claimed he did everything but actually kill the victim, blaming that on the other defendent. However, nobody believed him.

I am concerned about the impact of this technology on people's ability to understand the word as it is said in a courtroom. IANAL, but something about this really bothers me.

As we all know with our email communications, the meaning of a joke is easily lost when we send it to someone without the benefit of context. I have been threatened with severe beatings from people who did not know I was kidding because they could not see my body gestures change and could not hear a difference in my inflection. There i

Cut the welfare budget by 50% at a minimum and transfer the money over in each state to building more courts, hiring more prosecutors, judges and public defenders (good ones) and pass laws requiring the police to prioritize all property crimes above anything specious like drug crimes. Why? It'll kill two birds with one stone: slow trial dockets and much of the poverty in America.

What I am talking about isn't the shrill left wing bullshit of "OMG they want to lock up all the poor people" but rather a strict libertarianization of Giuliani's "Broken Windows" enforcement program. The idea is that you prosecute all minor property offenses and you treat even something as simple as an inner city teen stealing an inner city child's bike as a "gateway crime." It does two things: tries to nip the problem of repeat offenders in the bud by showing them the law always applies, and it shows the poor that the law can work for them just like the rich.

Without strong property protections, the poor don't have an incentive to believe that hard work really pays off. For every cop that genuinely believes that they have a moral imperative to protect that inner city single mother and her kids' property, there are probably 5 that feel that it's "not worth it the trouble to the tax payers." To which I, as a voting Libertarian, have to ask, "then WTF am I doing paying your salary and letting you hide behind a badge?" Seriously, sometimes with this kind of attitude I think we'd be better off in most areas in America with firing 90% of the cops and letting the average law abiding citizen own military-grade infantry weapons and waste any mofo that tries to steal from them. As Heinlein said, an armed society, is a polite society.

Seriously, just cut the welfare programs, gun control laws, let people use force to defend their property and make the cops accountable for when they don't do a damn thing to take down petty property rights offenders. Within a few years, the poverty in much of the urban areas in America will sharply decline, along with the crime rates, especially the violent crime.

Last year I went to a law firm for work experience, and I got to go to criminal and family court a couple of times. It was a pretty low-tech town I was in for that, but the courtroom still had a video-witness plasma screen mounted on either side of the room and rather encompassing mics so the lawyers could talk to the witness.

This was just a local trouble but they were still using the interactive/plasma screens for witness protection, so I wouldn't be surprised at all that these guys are being video-tria

A lot of people seem to have gotten their panties in a bunch about the right to face your accusser, etc. Please RTFAs. This isn't some system where the jury is in one room, the judge is some other location, the attornies in their office, etc. This is an electronic system that is put in place inside the courtroom to make proceedings faster. The fundamental system is unchanged.

I've long believed that an important step toward greater justice and less waste of time would be to forbid attorneys from appearing before the jury. Questions to witnesses should be submitted in a way that the jury neither sees nor hears the attorney. It's important for the jury to know the questions and to see and hear how the witness reacts and responds, and how the accused reacts. But there's no need to let the lawyer do their song and dance, putting spin on questions and role-playing how they want the jury to react to the answers.

Really good lawyers know how to size up jurors, decide which of them to "work on" and play to them individually, knowing that a purely psychological reaction by one person can deadlock the result. Technology like this being installed in courtrooms would make it physically possible to move the lawyer offstage. But I doubt very much that the Johnny Cochrans of the world will let go of their bread and butter merely for the sake of justice.

...referring to Basham's co-defendant, who plead guilty and was sentenced to death

A lot of murderers go free or get convicted of lesser crimes on some technicality. Don't prosecutors realize that a greater overall justice will be served if criminals are encouraged to confess in exchange for a small favor, like no death penalty and a 30 year maximum sentence unless there is an evidence and maybe let the see the sunshine as old men/women?

You've watched wayy too much Star Trek. The Death Penalty is neither 'primitive' nor 'barbaric'. It is, in fact, the honest response to the fact that sometimes people can do things for which there is no recompense and after which that person can never again be trusted to act as a human being. The Death Penalty isn't primarily a 'deterrent', it isn't a 'punishment', it's the best means of insuring that a person who has utterly broken from civilization and proven so through his actions can never again harm an

You've watched wayy too much Star Trek. The Death Penalty is neither 'primitive' nor 'barbaric'. It is, in fact, the honest response to the fact that sometimes people can do things for which there is no recompense and after which that person can never again be trusted to act as a human being. The Death Penalty isn't primarily a 'deterrent', it isn't a 'punishment', it's the best means of insuring that a person who has utterly broken from civilization and proven so through his actions can never again harm

it's the best means of insuring that a person who has utterly broken from civilization and proven so through his actions can never again harm an innocent person.

How many people on life without parole in maximum security prisons have escaped and killed again?

Scott Turow's recent book on capital punishment looks at it in a slightly different light than most people consider it. (He's very well qualified to speak on the issue, having successfully prosecuted many death penalty cases in Illinois, as well as